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After brief thoughts of a career in clinical psychology, I returned to my first love—English literature—earning an MA at the University of Alberta in 2000 and a PhD at Dalhousie University in 2004. The following year, I arrived at Laurier and began teaching courses in British Romantic literature, literary theory and, more recently, ecocriticism.
Teaching, I find, helps to keep one relatively young, and when that fails (as occasionally it does), I opt for leisurely walks in the country, lung-busting bike rides in the city, and games of soccer, wherever they may transpire.
My research began in Romantic aesthetics (the sublime, to be precise) but it has in recent years shifted to representations of pedestrianism, memory and ecology in the 18th and 19th centuries. I am interested, in short, in how the Romantics moved through nature and how the nature of those movements affected their relation to the world and to one another. Although historically oriented, these speculations have particular relevance to life in the digital age; indeed, they offer a foundation for interrogating our preoccupation with speed and the relentless mediations of technology.
- Laurier Travel Grant (2012, 2014).
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grant, 4A Standing (2009, 2010).
- Laurier Research Fellowship (2007).
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship (2002-2004).
- Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship (2001-2004).
I am happy to supervise graduate students in any area of British Romantic literature.
Books
- Wild Romanticism, edited by Markus Poetzsch and Cassandra Falke (Routledge 2021).
- “Visionary Dreariness”: Readings in Romanticism’s Quotidian Sublime. (Routledge 2006; reprint 2014).
Articles / Chapters
- "Picturesque Wilderness and the Human Problem." The Wordsworth Circle 52.3 (Summer 2021): 329-341.
- “John Clare’s Particular Particularity and the Language of Climate.” John Clare Society Journal 37 (June 2018): 27-40.
- “The Ornithographies of John Clare and Henry David Thoreau.” Transatlantic Literary Ecologies: Nature and Culture in the Nineteenth-Century Anglophone Atlantic World. Eds. Kevin Hutchings and John Miller. Routledge, 2017. 91-104.
- “Browsing the Past: Leigh Hunt and the Memorial Function of Shopping.” History of Retailing and Consumption 1.3 (2015): 165-171.
- “Fearful Spaces: Thomas De Quincey’s Sino-Anginophobia.” English Studies in Canada 41.2-3 (2015): 27-41.
- “‘Orchestral Parts’ in a Symphony of Motion: The Aesthetics of Coaching in the Golden Age of Horse and Carriage.” Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 16.2 (Summer 2015): 20-37.
- "The Brighter Side of 'Dark Ecology': John Clare and Henry David Thoreau." John Clare Society Journal 34 (2015): 63-73.
- “Between the ‘Abyss of Idealism’ and the Hard Wall of ‘Reality’: Lessons of the Wordsworthian Child.” New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 20.1 (2014): 15-25.
- “Leigh Hunt’s Pedestrian ‘Townosophy’: Reading London on Two Feet.” Romantic Cityscapes. Eds. Jens Martin Gurr and Berit Michel. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2013. 139-145.
- “Towards an Ethical Criticism: The Lessons of Levinas.” The Antigonish Review 158 (Summer 2009): 127-134.
- “From Eco-Politics to Apocalypse: The Contentious Rhetoric of Eighteenth-Century Landscape Gardening. ” Romantic Textualities 19 (Summer 2009): September 2009.
- “Vying for ‘Brilliant Landscapes’: Claude Mirrors, Wordsworth, and Poetic Vision.” The Wordsworth Circle 39.3 (Summer 2008): 114-120.
- “Sounding Walden Pond: The Depths and ‘Double Shadows’ of Thoreau’s Autobiographical Symbol.” American Transcendental Quarterly 22.2 (2008): 387-401.
- “Presence, Deixis and the Making of Meaning in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.” University of Toronto Quarterly 75.4 (2006): 946-956.
- “Drawing the Open Wound: The Signifying Silences of Elie Wiesel.” IDEA: A Journal of Social Issues 10.1 (2005): November 20, 2005.
- “The Miracle of Waiting: Weil, Wiesel and Lazarus.” Consensus: Canadian Lutheran Journal of Theology 29.1 (2003): 127-133.
Contact Info:
Office location: DAWB 3-132
Office hours: Mondays, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Languages spoken: English, German